A Voice Within: The Balkan Peace Album
Songs written and performed by Nalini Lasiewicz

In memory of Shin Yasui, University of Oregon graduate who worked with the victims of war in Bosnia, who stayed and worked in the city of Mostar longer than almost any other international aid worker. He started a youth center and engaged young people in discussions in peace, magazine production, writing, music and theater.

Recorded by Richard Barron, Sonora Recorders, Los Angeles, CA
Additional engineering, Scott Gordon and Paul Berolzheimer
Produced and arranged by Rick Jensen and Nalini Lasiewicz
Additional production and arrangement, Richard Barron

Nalini Lasiewicz, vocals, acoustic guitar, piano, dulcimer
Darryl Jensen, electric, electric 12 string, slide, steel and nylon string guitars
Jerry Angel, drums and percussion
Paul Eckman, bass
Richard Barron, Hammon organ
Bill Cunliffe, piano
Probyn Gregory, horns
Backing vocals, Probyn Gregory, Wendie Colter, 4th grade class at Pasadena Waldorf School and Darryl Jensen
Mark Justin, electronic orchestra

Contact: Nalini Lasiewicz 818 249-9691

A Voice Within: The Balkan Peace Album

This song is a tribute to human rights activist Shin Yasui, who was killed in a car accident in June 1998. Yasui was working with the "Mladi Most" ("Youth Bridge") project in Mostar as well as in Sarajevo and Foca from 1994 to 1998. His teachings in cross-cultural seminars and his all-partisan approach to conflicts have deeply moved people who knew him in Bosnia-Herzegovina and all over the world . 
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A Voice Within
by Nalini Lasiewicz
 
Your story will be told. Your story will be told.
 
Now that you've left us I can see you better than before
I feel a windy storm was blowin' through your caring soul
Shin, a voice within

You gave of yourself, listening to people who were cast away
Offering friendship at a time when all love was blown away
Shin, a voice within

Timeless, the life you led. Kindness in your own quiet way
Your life was cut short, tears overwhelmed me and those you left behind
We will carry your memory inside us, a burning brilliant light
	 
	(c) 1999 Lasiewicz Foundation

A Voice Within - A Tribute to Shin Yasui

This song was inspired from a talk given by Winona LaDuke. She tells of a tradition in her tribe in which major decisions by the community would have to consider the effects for seven generations forward.This song is heavy on percussion and a collage of chants that transcend culture and regions and follows a long journey from cave men to Pigrims, women's suffragettes to today's environmental activists. Recorded at Sonora Recorders in Los Angeles.

Seventh Generation
by Nalini Lasiewicz

Did you know when you built your cave and used your tools to hunt for prey…
Did you know there would come a day your fires and fury would lead this way? 
 
And when you held your stick up high and aimed it at the endless sky….did you think you would touch the hand of someone in the Seventh Generation? Reaching over five thousand Nations, like you reached me? Whoa yeah! 

As you drifted, counting stars, did you think you'd sail this far? 
As the New World welcomed you could you guess the harm you'd do? 

On the day she won the vote and spoke above the cigar smoke, she said "A woman's place is Life!"  Did she think we'd get the right? 

And on the day you took a stand and tied your leg to a Redwood branch, could you see a greener day, when asphalt lots are cleared away?

(c) 2018 Nalprana Music   All rights reserved.

Seventh Generation

This song is an anthem I wrote to honor the Women in Black group from Belgrade.
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Women for Peace
by: Nalini Lasiewicz

You're standing in the kitchen. It's the only warm room. Getting ready to go out, though a part of you doesn't want to. You remember your childhood, when the world was at war. And now it's happening all over. How could anyone take any more?
Put your black coat on.  Take the signs you've drawn.  Join the ladies, downtown.  Becoming Women for Peace. Down in the street. Women for Peace out on the street. You've given more than you bargained. How many tears did you cry? Now you march in his memory telling anyone, who happens by. Some will curse you with glances. In a mob you only feel fear. Then you hear someone whisper "I'm so grateful that you're always here!" Pick a day to start, speak out from your heart You're no longer alone!

(c) 2018 Nalprana Music  All rights reserved.

Women For Peace

I wrote this song to show solidarity with the people of Sarajevo as they endured a horrific period of civil war and the longest seige of a European city since WWII.  The war in Bosnia marked a remarkable period in which the Internet was given global peace activists a format in which to reach one another and we got nearly all our news from e-mails and the new forums that enabled worldwide connections to be made.  I was entrusted to moderate Tribunal Watch, an unusually mixed audience of former Yugoslav nationals and their supporters, on all sides.  A war of words ensued and continues, to today.  Truth is a casualty of war.  This song is about the manipulation of minds and the heavy cost paid.

A Century of War (E-mail to Bosnia)
by, Nalini Lasiewicz

Each day I read the news and watch as nations explode
My heart sinks and skips a beat, when I hear what the people are told

(Chorus)
They’re told lies, surrounding me tonight blinking from a screen
twisting the minds of all those who don’t know 
That they’re lies purposefully told 
To ruin the chances for peace to take hold in the lives of all people

Some friends don’t understand why this is haunting my dreams
A century of war and the ghosts that remain have taught me what my freedom means

Years pass headlines fade still the damage of war marches on
Follow the money and you will find people behind all of those lies

Each day I read the news

(c) All rights reserved. Nalprana Music 2018

A Century of War (E-mail to Bosnia)

Language is one of the many weapons that people use in war.  I wrote this song to demonstrate how each "side" looks at things differently and how wars are built on the destructive focus on what divides us rather than what unites us.  Note: the Serbs call the region Kosovo, the Albanians call it Kosova.

Kosovo, Kosova
by Nalini Lasiewicz

We'll never see eye-to-eye,
Until we hear with our hearts open wide.
We have our differences, don't we?
In the time and the place we were raised.
In the temples and churches that taught us,
Different ways.
 
You say that revenge is all right.
That a man must pay for his ancestors crimes
But once that old bottle is opened
And the genie let out of his cage
The rights of all others are shattered
Along the way!
 
One side says: "Wo wo wo...Kosovo!"
And the other side says, "La la la......Kosova!"
 
I didn't start out to offend you.
And I'm sorry that it's turned out that way.
But there are two sides to the story,
And you don't want to hear what they are.
But you want us to follow you blindly,
Into war!
 
One side says: "La la la.........Kosova!"
And the other side says, "Wo wo wo......Kosovo!"
 
We'll never see eye-to-eye,
Until we hear with our hearts opened wide.
We have our differences don't we?
In the weapons and tools that we choose.
In the heartache we're willing to suffer,
Or to use!
 
We have our differences, don't we?
In the way that we look at the world.
In the stories and people we care for
Or ignore!
 
We have our differences, don't we?

Kosovo, Kosova

Soothing and sincere, featuring gentle female lead vocals, piano and strings creating a contemplative, warm mood.

Balkan Peace Album

Hold On

Singer-songwriter Nalini Lasiewicz. Founding member JNJ Band. "Peace.  May all beings never be parted from freedom’s true joy."